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Yahoo Buys Summly News Aggregation App Developed By UK Teen

Yahoo has acquired mobile app Summly, which was founded by UK teen Nick D’Aloisio. He was 15 then; he’s 17 now. Summly is not unlike Zite or Flipboard. It’s a mobile app that aggregates and formats news content from numerous publishers and offers elegant “summaries” of those articles.

AllThingsD reported that the acquisition price was “close to $30 million.” Founder D’Aloisio and the Summly team will join Yahoo. However, the Summly app will disappear, starting today.

This is both an “acqu-hire” and a technology acquisition for Yahoo, which will incorporate Summly’s capabilities into its news app and other mobile properties (“throughout Yahoo!’s mobile experiences”). It may well be a mistake for Yahoo to shutter Summly, but CEO Marissa Mayer is trying to create consistent PC-to-mobile brand experiences.

This acquisition follows last week’s announcement that Yahoo was buying Jybe.

Below is a video of Nick D’Aloisio and actor-technology enthusiast Stephen Fry explaining the benefits of Summly.

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About The Author

Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land. He writes a personal blog, Screenwerk, about connecting the dots between digital media and real-world consumer behavior. He is also VP of Strategy and Insights for the Local Search Association. Follow him on Twitter or find him at Google+.